Gunsmoke
The Twisted Heritage
TV Flash files “The Twisted Heritage” as hour 478 of 635 in the TV Flash guide — Gunsmoke (1955–1975) on CBS, season 14, episode 15, aired 1968-01-06, 60 min.
From the desk
How this hour is filed
This leaf is S14E15: listed hour 478 of 635 in the Gunsmoke guide, hour 15 of 26 in season 14. It aired 1968-01-06 (60 min). The listed hour before it is “The Money Store” (S14E14). Next is “Time of the Jackals” (S14E16). Broadcast log — titles and dates, not a plot bible.
Catalog log
Broadcast listing — not a TV Flash recap.
On her way back to Dodge after a short trip, Kitty shares a stagecoach ride with Blaine Copperton, a gentlemanly but uncertain man who seems to be far less mature than his age. Suddenly, two armed bandits attack the stage, killing the driver and seriously wounding Copperton. Copperton manages to grab a shotgun and kill the bandits, but then collapses unconscious. Kitty drives the stage to Copperton's ranch, where she finds a family of squatters living in a shack. The squatters, who have a long-running feud with the powerful Copperton family, refuse to give any help. When Kitty gets to the ranch headquarters and finds Copperton's mother, she finds a powerful matriarch who treats her son like a child, her granddaughter (Copperton's daughter) as barely legitimate and everyone else like so many servants. The mother soon finds out about the squatters. She goes to their shack, burns it to the ground, and shoots a squatter in the leg. Kitty calls for help before things get way out of hand, but before Matt can get there, the squatters kidnap Kitty and demand that Copperton show up to rescue her and get shot in the leg himself. Copperton defies his mother and shows up at an old mine where the squatters have hidden out, but will the feud turn deadly?
Viewer FAQ
Where does The Twisted Heritage sit in the Gunsmoke guide?
S14E15 is listed hour 478 of 635 — hour 15 of 26 in season 14, season 14 episode 15.
When did Gunsmoke S14E15 air?
The Twisted Heritage aired 1968-01-06 and is listed at 60 minutes.
Where should I start?
Start with the 1955 opener, where the marshal is not invincible. Then sample a later guest-star hour rather than marching through hundreds of titles in order.
In the series
Why this series still plays
Twenty seasons of Dodge as a civic appointment: a marshal who can lose, a chorus instead of gadgets, and adult-western hours that treat a gunfight as a verdict. Longevity here was weather, not catalog padding — weekly public work with dust still on the boots.
September 1955, CBS: a marshal takes a bullet in the first hour and the adult western stops being a kid’s hat commercial. Gunsmoke had already lived on radio, with a different voice in the badge. Television wanted a face the lens could trust. The lore still pours like bar whiskey — John Wayne pointing at James Arness, William Conrad left on the airwaves, a casting fight that was really a medium fight. Radio-to-TV is never a reprint. It is a negotiation about whose body gets to mean the law.
Filed against
- James Arness as Marshal Matt Dillon
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- Amanda Blake as Miss Kitty Russell
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- Milburn Stone as Doc Adams
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- Dennis Weaver as Chester Goode
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- Ken Curtis as Festus Haggen
Ken Curtis’s Festus Haggen is Gunsmoke’s later chorus — Dodge City as a weekly moral court, a marshal who can lose, adult-western hours that treat a gunfight as a verdict. Twenty seasons of civic work with dust on the boots. On TV Flash…